


The Skin You're In

by EntreNous



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Post-Chosen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntreNous/pseuds/EntreNous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Buffy sees Faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Skin You're In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lokifan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokifan/gifts).



When Buffy saw Faith, she heard the crack of bones, the lurch of that one last breath. She saw the point and the corpse, felt the plunge and the dust, smelled the stale scent of death.

"You okay?" Faith asked, nodding at the petite Slayer training on the mat across the floor, her green eyes flickering over to the two of them, anxious to know what Buffy and Faith thought of her moves.

Buffy took a moment to watch the small fighter using a series of punches that looked way too familiar. Her red hair, pulled overly-tight in a ponytail, bobbed in the sunlight streaming through the windows as she tried an offensive combination.

"Higher on the roundhouse kick," Buffy called out across the gym. "Me?" She turned to Faith, taking a slow deep breath to relax her stance. "Fine. I'm great! Right as ravioli." She bounced on the balls of her feet before she wrinkled her nose. "That's a thing, right?"

"Hell if I know." Faith examined her bruised knuckles. "She's pretty good, huh? Didn't expect her to knock me into the wall, before; that punch I threw landed right on the concrete." She looked up, dark eyes dancing as she thrust her fist a breath away from Buffy's lips. "Kiss 'em better?"

"Shut up." A shake of her head and a small smile, and Faith's fingers uncurled, withdrew.

Faith grinned before she shook out her hand and shifted to her other foot. Her voice held a thread of nervousness when she spoke next. "So I was thinking, if we wanted to split up the patrols again, you could choose which group you wanted to take on this time. I got to choose last month, right?"

Buffy bit the inside of her cheek, because Faith was swagger and red-lipped laughter, a snap of dark hair against a black night sky, not an anxious supplicant for Buffy's approval (supplicant: petitioner, requester. Another SAT word edging into her thoughts; she'd been helping Dawn study).

"You choose again." Buffy shrugged, eyes trained on the girl across the room. "I'm good with whatever." She looked up to see the uncertainty flicker over Faith's face. Two years after Sunnydale, and that layer of anxiety clouding Faith like nearly-visible static still wouldn't go away. It was like Willow in withdrawal, cheerful insistence on everything's great, everything's fine, when underneath there was shaky sadness to scrape away if you wanted to get to the simple part, the sharp, darkly shimmering core.

Buffy made herself give an encouraging nod, same as she did to the girls she trained. _Like this. Like me._ Stupid, when what she knew bone-deep of Faith wasn't, for all they shared, anything like Buffy.

Faith's nod back was relieved, like she'd been spared another day from the end she'd expected.

When Buffy saw Faith, she saw grey stone, damp grass, moon and starlight playing over that vicious, triumphant smile.

"Okay. Yeah. That's cool," Faith offered. The shift to her other foot was nearly imperceptible.

"Great," Buffy said brightly. She turned toward the girl on the mat, toward the streaming sunlight, and walked away.

**Author's Note:**

> For lokifan, who asked for "Buffy/Faith, simple." Gah, this is more gen than I wanted (why do my recent prompt-fills keep going all gen-ish on me? the next one is going to be _filthy_ -shippy, I hope). But then even Buffy & Faith always has the flavor of Buffy/Faith to me, so I hope this suits.


End file.
